Regarding fire detection, a fire detection system comprises an electronic central monitoring station and a detection network that communicates with the electronic control unit including one or more alarm triggering devices or fire detection points.
These alarm triggering devices or detection points may comprise automatic fire detectors able to sense a phenomenon representative of a fire and manual fire detectors (manual triggers), which can be operated by a person discovering a fire situation. Alarm triggering devices are in general distributed in the area or areas to be monitored and connected to the central monitoring station. The electronic control unit makes it possible to monitor the area or areas to be monitored by means of the alarm triggering devices and to broadcast an alarm when a fire is detected.
The alarm triggering devices are connected to the central monitoring station so as to allow information to be exchanged between the control unit and said alarm triggering devices, so that the control unit is kept informed of the status of each element of the detection network and, if applicable, to control them.
Fire detection systems are known in which the alarm triggering devices are connected to the control unit by means of a wireless connection. To ensure reliable and safe monitoring, a high-quality link between each alarm triggering device and the control unit is important so as to enable information exchanges. However, the quality of the link can be degraded because of a loss of electric power at the alarm triggering device or because of the presence of obstacles in the radio communication path between said alarm triggering device and the control unit, for example. This can bring about a communications failure between the two elements.
In addition, wireless communications for an alarm triggering device require a high current consumption, which can quickly exhaust the power supply.
A power supply or radio communications fault can be very dangerous when a fire breaks out, since the alarm triggering device would be unable to communicate with the central monitoring station to signal that the alarm has been triggered. Where the alarm triggering device is a manual trigger, in the case of a fault as cited above, the person operating said manual trigger would not be informed that there is an operating fault of the trigger and that consequently the alarm would not be transmitted to the fire detection system control unit.
The same drawbacks as those described above can also be found when an intrusion detection system or an operational malfunction detection system for technical facilities is under consideration.
The present invention aims to remedy all or part of the drawbacks described above.